Whereas New York News waited for the elected officers to emerge from their go to to 26 Federal Plaza on Dec. 19, 2025, armed ICE officers stood on guard on the doorways whereas masked ICE brokers emerged from the doorway and have been pushed by members of the press.
Photograph by Dean Moses
For months, U.S. Reps. Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat have been turned away by Homeland Safety officers from repeated makes an attempt to examine areas of 26 Federal Plaza the place immigrants have been mentioned to be detained. On Friday, they have been lastly let in.
Goldman and Espaillat lastly gained entry into the beforehand restricted areas after a federal decide compelled ICE to take action after months of obstruction. As soon as inside, the Congress members discovered that no fewer than 9 immigrants have been being detained in a Tenth-floor space with out correct entry to beds (they have been sleeping on health club mats as an alternative) and with shared rest room amenities, despite the fact that women and men have been among the many detained.
In talking with among the detainees there, Goldman mentioned he additionally discovered one thing in widespread with them: Not one of many detainees had a felony document.
Certainly, most of the folks detained at Federal Plaza over the past seven months, a few of whom New York News has interviewed, have been people abiding by court docket orders to attend hearings who’ve by no means been arrested for a violent crime.
That stands in sharp distinction to statements made by Trump administration officers comparable to Border Czar Tom Homan, who has falsely insisted that ICE brokers are solely concentrating on “the worst of the worst,” that means non-law-abiding criminals.
Most New Yorkers need violent criminals off our streets and out of our society, but when ICE isn’t getting “the worst of the worst,” what then are they doing? We once more ask: How does arresting hundreds of law-abiding immigrants for minor infractions or paperwork errors “make America great again?”
ICE’s continued operations at Federal Plaza — its masked brokers roughly arresting folks and assaulting journalists and advocates; its detainment of non-violent folks in unfit quarters — carry disgrace upon this nation and metropolis. They act in our identify, and it should come to an finish.
ICE brokers should take away the masks and clearly establish themselves to whoever they encounter. They need to solely goal for arrest and deportation these people with violent felony data. They need to go away alone nonviolent immigrants who’re in any other case abiding by the regulation and making constructive contributions to our society.
Ought to ICE and Homeland Safety refuse to face down, it’s as much as Goldman and Espaillat, as members of Congress, to do every part of their energy to cease them. And it’s as much as our metropolis and state officers to double down on their ongoing efforts to guard New York’s immigrant group below state and metropolis laws — and combat ICE with each authorized device at its disposal.
